Publishing your first novel at 82 is a prime example of playing the creative long-game. For some scribes, Norma MacMaster’s debut will no doubt bring comfort in the face of rejection letters or keyboards gathering dust.
On the other hand, MacMaster’s fiction debut (she released a memoir in 2008) is not encouraging reading for would-be authors in that it puts on show a lifetime of craft and consideration congealing with a wisdom that cannot be simulated.
She reportedly wrote “a bit now and a bit then”, and described holding Silence Under a Stone in her hand as “absolutely shocking” and “like a dream”. There is something very hard-nosed and stealthy about all this. Not for her the concerns of building a brand by churning out a novel every 15 months. This is somebody achieving their moment of greatness completely on their own terms and executing it in immaculate style. Most débutantes can only dream of such canniness.
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